CINCINNATI: Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park has announced the inaugural class of its Arts and Culture Incubator program. The program will provide resources and mentoring to nine local organizations and two local theatre artists.
“Theatre is inherently a collaborative art form: No play makes it to the stage without the talents of a production team and a company that affords them resources,” producing artistic director Blake Robison said in a statement. “We recognize that we can provide this same kind of collaborative energy for our artistic and cultural peers. Ultimately, our entire community benefits from their talents.”
The 2023 Incubator program members include Cincinnati Music Accelerator, Cincinnati Pride, DuWaup’s Cincinnati Poetry Slam, Elevated Aerials, the Greater Cincinnati Native American Coalition, Heroes Rise Street Dance Academy, Queen City Flash, Science on Tap, and the Young Professionals Choral Collective of Cincinnati. Additionally, artists Derek J. Snow and Curtis D. Shepard will also participate as program members.
Each of the Incubator members has worked with the Playhouse or with Playhouse partners previously, including in stage productions, community engagement events, or educational programming. Snow and Shepard were selected in 2021 as part of the Breath Project, a national artistic initiative.
Snow is an actor, director, and writer who has been active in the Cincinnati theatre scene for over four decades. A graduate of Cincinnati’s School for Creative and Performing Arts and a public school dramatic arts teacher, Snow has been a member of the physical theatre group Performance Gallery for 21 years. His works have been produced nationwide and in the U.K., India, and Australia. In 2020, Snow established the nonprofit Missing Front Plate Productions to address the lack of BIPOC work in theatres nationwide. Snow’s directing credits include Mariemont Players, Inc., Know Theatre, Falcon Theatre, and Footlighters, Inc.
Shepard is an actor, writer, and spoken word artist who founded the grassroots parents support group Dads Against Angry Moms. In 2021, a staged reading of Shepard’s piece Get Off Of Me premiered at the Pacific Northwest Multi-Cultural Readers Series & Film Festival. Shepard was a finalist in the 2021 Breath Project for his production Ronnie and Vince. Shepard recently starred in Trapped at the IndyFringe Theatre Festival.
Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park is committed to bringing diverse, engaging works of great artistry to the Cincinnati community and to putting the city’s artistic excellence in the national spotlight. As of 2021, the theatre had a budget of approximately $17.7 million.
